Tension builds in Dili

ABC – Transcript The World Today Programme – Thursday, 5 April , 2007 12:14

Reporter: Anne Barker

ELEANOR HALL: Let's go now to Dili where the tension on the streets is building as citizens prepare to vote in Monday's Presidential election.
UN police have already fired warning shots and two police officers have been injured trying to deal with the violent clashes between Fretilin party members and their rivals.

The popular President, Shanana Gusmao, is not standing for re-election. And the contest between eight Presidential contenders is highlighting the deep generational divide between young East Timorese and the old resistance fighters from the Fretilin party.

Anne Barker is in Dili and she joins us now.
So Anne, what is the security situation there at the moment, how many police are on the streets?

ANNE BARKER: Well Eleanor, it's very visible everywhere, there are Australian troops on the one hand; there are UN police, which have been building in numbers in recent months.

There's even been a boost to New Zealand troops, so we have about more than 1,000 Australian soldiers who are very much around Dili and in some of the districts outside.

There are about 1,600 United Nations police, 150 New Zealanders, and also the local Timorese police force has been slowly gathering strength in recent months so that the force that was largely inactive after last year's crisis, a lot of those police have been training up their skills and have been slowly reintroduced onto the streets.

ELEANOR HALL: And what are the Australian troops saying about the role they're trying to play there to keep order?

ANNE BARKER: Well look, they are very much coordinating with the United Nations police, they are very much a joint task force and they'll be operating both in Dili and in a lot of the major towns in the days ahead.

We have had some tensions on the streets here, sporadic violence particularly yesterday, where there was some election rallies, and the Australian police at one large incident were the first that I saw on the ground.

They arrived in droves, as there was a rock fight that happened on the road to the airport, and it was quite violent at one stage, so the role is very much to keep law and order in the days ahead and also to provide some security when the election takes place on Monday for a new President.

ELEANOR HALL: And Anne, are security forces saying that they're worried about violence after the vote, or is the election itself likely to defuse the situation?

ANNE BARKER: Look, I've just been to a press conference with the Australian Defence Brigadier Mal Rerden, and he says that he is not particularly worried about the violence, that so far it has been sporadic and isolated, and even the large rock fight that we saw yesterday he described as low level exuberance, that it is very much just rivalry between political supporters for the various parties, and it was quickly brought under control, I was there myself and I saw it and I would attest to that.

So I don't think they are particularly worried that there will be any serious violence any more than we have seen in the last few days, even on Election Day. But depending on the results, who knows whether that might change.

ELEANOR HALL: Now this election won't select the parliament of East Timor, it is only to fill the largely ceremonial role of President. Why is it generating so much tension?

ANNE BARKER: Well look, it comes back to party politics I guess you could say, that Fretlin has been the dominant party here not just since independence five or six years ago but also going right back to the 1970's.

And it has a massive majority in the parliament at the moment, and yet we saw the disillusionment with Mari Alkatiri, the Fretilin Prime Minister last year, who was ousted in June.

So there is still a lot of tension between the very large numbers of Fretilin supporters right through the country, and there are seven other candidates including Jose Ramos Horta, the interim Prime Minister who is running as an independent, there other parties as well, the Social Democrats, the Democratic Party and various other candidates.

So because we have such a large number of candidates, and one of them is Fretilin, that has been seen by many to have helped generate a lot of the crisis and a lot of the divisions in the community here, it is understandable that there is going to be a lot of tension on the streets.

ELEANOR HALL: And you mentioned that the Prime Minister Ramos Horta is standing for President, if he were to win, what would that mean for his current position as PM?

ANNE BARKER: Well look, he has maintained that he is only the interim Prime Minster at the moment, and at the moment he is standing for President, he is also running on a fairly loose sort of joint ticket with Shanana Gusmao, the incumbent President who is stepping down and in fact wants to become the Prime Minster.

So they are effectively supporting each other to swap jobs.

If Jose Ramos Horta was to become the Prime Minister then obviously he wouldn't be the Prime Minister. If he doesn't win next week or when the election results come through then I guess the question will be will he run as a Prime Minster, as an independent Prime Minister, when those elections are held not until late June.

And look, the results or the outcome on Monday will be crucial here because if there is a clear victor then we will know the result on Monday night, but there is every chance that this will go to a second election, a run-off election, perhaps in May, and people are telling me that that would favour Jose Ramos Horta.

Because it's a bit like the preferential vote in Australia, those people who voted for the minor candidates will then have to vote again, and because they haven't voted for the Fretilin candidate, it will be very much a two-man race between Jose Ramos Horta and the Fretilin candidate, and that could then favour Jose Ramos Horta at the run-off election if there is one.

ELEANOR HALL: Anne Barker in Dili, thank you. And that vote in East Timor to take place on Monday.

NOTA DE RODAPÉ:
Esta entrevista é hilariante.

1. Não existe "polícia australiana" em Timor-Leste. Existe UNPOL, por tal, os polícias de nacionalidade australiana estão integrados em patrulhas de várias nacionalidades.

2. Ramos-Horta não se poderá candidatar como "Primeiro-Minsitro independente" porque as eleições legislativas são para eleger os deputados ao Parlamento Nacional, e o Presidente da República convidará o partido com mais assentos parlamentares a indicar o nome do Primeiro-Ministro.

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